Volume 10 Issue 8
by Larry J. Grainger
August 2008

THE GIFT OF SABBATH

I can hear some of you now; “There he goes trying to put us under the Mosaic Law.”  Somehow we have developed a fear of anything that comes from the Old Testament and that fear sometimes causes us to ignore the truth given in the Old Testament.  I should say the Old Testament is just as relevant to our walk with Jesus Christ as is the New Testament.  Jesus said that He didn’t come to abolish the law, but rather to fulfill it.  Remember the axiom, “The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.”  Having said that, no I am not attempting to return to our observing the law or adopting any kind of rules or regulations.  I simply want us to take a look at a principle that Jesus Himself addressed and contemplate how we might make any needed adjustments in our lives accordingly.

“And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. The Pharisees were saying to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ . . . Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’” Jesus the Lord of the Sabbath reminds us of the gift God the Father had given the people of Israel; the sabbath rest. The Sabbath principle is rooted in the fact that we as human beings were not created to work seven days a week. As matter of fact, even God doesn’t work seven days a week. He worked six days and then rested on the seventh. Do you think that is because God was tired? I think not. God rested to show us the way into a place of rest in Him. We on the other hand do tire physically and sustained times of working seven days will result in physical illness and spiritual dryness, among other things. We as New Testament believers should embrace the principle of Sabbath, not as a law to observe, but as a gift from the Lord God to us.

The Sabbath is introduced to us in the story of God providing for the children of Israel in the wilderness. The account is in Exodus 16. The people began to grumble because of the seeming bleakness of their plight. God told Moses He had heard their grumbling and He would provide meat and bread for them. The Father promised quail in the evening and bread in the morning. The Israelites were instructed to take a certain measurement per person each day and to not keep any overnight. Thus God was teaching them that He was their source and there was no reason to hoard God’s provision. As humans are prone to do, some worried that tomorrow would not come to them accompanied by provision so they kept some of the food to eat the next day. When they awoke the next day, what they had kept in reserve was rotten and inedible. God then instructed them on the sixth day to gather exactly twice as much as the other five days and it would be preserved for the next day and there would be nothing on the seventh day because God had already provided for that on the sixth day. (It is germane to our topic to point out here that there were some who went out on the seventh day anyway and found nothing.) Verse 23 records these words, “Tomorrow is a sabbath observance, a holy sabbath to the LORD. Bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning. So they put it aside until morning, as Moses had ordered, and it did not become foul nor was there any worm in it.” This is the first time the word “Sabbath” appears in scripture. I must call attention to the fact here that this was before the Mosaic Law had even been instituted. God would later include the observance when He gave the Law to Moses, but there was no law at the time of God’s introducing the Sabbath day and the keeping of it holy. Verse 29 says, “See, the LORD has given you the Sabbath . . .” Even from the beginning, God’s intention was that this would be a gift to us and not a burden. I am attempting to communicate in such a way that you see a sabbath day as a gift.

What God was doing with the manna and the quail was teaching His people to trust in His provision. He was providing them a way to learn to rest in His provision. God is our Provider; not our bank account, not our place of employment, not an anticipated inheritance, not a lucky lottery ticket. Many people, especially those who have their own business, find it difficult to take one day a week and set it aside for the cessation of their labors. I have met some who simply felt they needed to milk every ounce of every day possible or they would end up “in the poor house.” Are you working yourself silly out of fear that God will not provide for you and yours? Have you neglected observing a Sabbath day each week? Allow me to insert here that I am not advocating slothfulness. Diligent work is one of the godliest things to which we can apply ourselves. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians that if “anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.” I am simply asking what is the reason for our work. It is to participate with God in the managing of creation in such a manner that we emulate the creativity and productivity of the Lord God and so provide goods and services that are beneficial to all society. As Brother Charles Simpson once wrote, “The biblical work ethic is God & man laboring together to cause creation to prosper, thus returning abundance to God & man.” At the end of the day, we still must trust the Lord to provide for us as He has promised.

Why should we observe the Sabbath day? First of all, because God declared it holy and set His blessing upon it. Look at these verses from Exodus 20, “. . . the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” Do we think the Lord “unblessed” that which He had declared holy? I think not. If God saw fit to give us this Sabbath day and He declared it holy, we tread on tenuous ground if we fail to observe it.

Another reason we observe a day of rest each week is we tangibly demonstrate to God that we truly do trust Him. We also allow room for God’s provision to be consistent and faithful. If we will adopt a discipline of ceasing from our regular labors one day a week, after some time we will be able to testify to the fact that the Lord has provided all that we needed and then some, in spite of our not “working every day for as long as possible.” In other words, we actually learn to trust God more when we see Him providing for us. I believe, as in the principle of tithing (see October and November of 2007 Kernels of Truth) that if we will set aside a day of sabbath, we will find that our provisions are more than if we had insisted upon working that seventh day. Remember when the children of Israel went out on the seventh day, they found nothing. If you rob from the Sabbath day, what you have will rot and go away. I believe we have far too many people professing Christ whose lives demonstrate a lack of trust and faith in God and His ability and willingness to provide. He has prescribed certain things for us to do and observe and if we will align our lives with His commands (remember “keep the Sabbath holy” is one of the Ten Commandments), the quality of our lives will greatly increase. It is just a matter of determining who can best provide for you and your household; you or your God.

There is another matter which the gift of sabbath addresses. That is the simple matter, mentioned earlier, that we as human beings are not constructed to work seven days a week. To insist upon pushing ourselves week in and week out, ignoring simple biological facts, is to place ourselves on the path to a physical train wreck at some point in our future. I believe many illnesses are due to our neglecting to keep the Sabbath day holy as instructed by our Lord. I have found something else to be true in this matter. In the arena of tithe, it has often been said that if we will not relinquish our tithe to the Lord, He will ultimately get His tithe if only through the devourer. A similar thing is true in the area of the Sabbath. When we insist upon refusing to slow down and take the rest prescribed by the Great Physician, ultimately God will extract His Sabbath from us. I remember when I was an associate pastor of a church many years ago and I would push myself seven days a week (or rather I was pushed), most of the time 12-15 hours a day, that every once in a while I would raise my head off my pillow at home and my body would say to me, “not today, buddy.” It was almost like the Lord was saying to me, “you are going to observe the Sabbath one way or another.” Remember the very reason for the Babylonian Captivity of the Jewish people of Judah was their refusal to give the land its designated sabbaths each seven years. Therefore, God sent them away to Babylon so that the land could receive the accumulated years of rest stipulated by its Maker. We must therefore ask ourselves the question, “Is God trying to tell me something about the balance of rest and work, my effort and His provisions, saving for a time of rest and not being anxious about His provisions?” The answer to that question could prove to be very valuable to you.

Now we will conclude with some practical applications. What day should we set aside as the Sabbath day? It is a fact that the Jews celebrated what we know as Saturday as the Sabbath day. The early church adopted the first day of the week as the Sabbath, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord. Paul is very clear in his writings to not esteem one day above another (see Romans 14:5, Galatians 4:10, and Colossians 2:16). For the majority of us in the western culture, Saturday or Sunday will be the most appropriate day to take an intermission from our normal labors. For some of you, it may work better on a Tuesday or a Friday. The verse in Colossians says that “no one is to act as your judge in regard to . . . a Sabbath day . . .” So only you can determine which day suits your schedule better to observe a time of cessation from your work.

Something else to remember is that the Sabbath is not a day to pull down all the shades in the house and withdraw from civilization. You may very well need to do that from time to time, but the observing of Sabbath does not require that. The simple day of repose from your vocational activities is all that is needed to refresh yourself and recharge your batteries for another week of productivity. All the torrid stories you may have heard about the required inactivity was simply unnecessary add-ons by the Pharisaical priesthood of the day in Bible times; a heavy burden placed upon the Jewish people that God never intended.

There is also the “ox in the ditch” principle. Jesus was about to heal a man on the Sabbath and He knew the religious crowd would be up in arms over the matter. Jesus, being proactive, asked, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” When they did not answer, Christ simply healed the man of leprosy. Then He made this statement, “Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?” The point of all this is that the idea of not lifting a finger on your Sabbath day is not what the Father is after. Remember the Sabbath day is a gift to you. And also remember Jesus’ words earlier in this letter, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Sometimes, we might even have to work on a seventh day of the week due to extraordinary circumstances. Since we are not talking observing a law here but partaking of a gift from the Father, no harm is done in tending to an imminent matter.

And finally, to repeat, this idea of Sabbath is not a license for laziness. Some might say, “If God is so serious about a day of rest, how about I take 4 days of rest a week.” Remember that in the Scripture a Sabbath day is always preceded by six days of work. We should apply ourselves diligently to the task the Lord has put our hand to and observe the Gift of Sabbath regularly; but only after we have worked.

I trust this is a refreshing topic and not a burdensome one. Identify the gift to you from your Lord and use it accordingly. You will be glad you did.